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/ 13 June 2007

Sexwale: Africa needs to find its own way

Africa will have to find its own way and develop its own growth agenda, which will not be either the Indian or Chinese way of forging economic development, Mvelaphanda Holdings executive chairperson Tokyo Sexwale argued on Wednesday at a World Economic Forum media briefing at the start of the forum conversation on Africa.

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/ 30 May 2007

Moves afoot to govern use of energy appliances

The Department of Minerals and Energy is working on regulations to govern "the norms and standards" of energy appliances so as to reduce the use of energy, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Wednesday. Speaking ahead of her budget vote, the minister acknowledged that people would be obligated "to be energy efficient".

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/ 17 April 2007

Cosatu on Wolfowitz: ‘Told you so’

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called for the resignation of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz "not just because of his abuse of his office to promote, and give a huge pay rise to, his girlfriend, but because of his consistently anti-working class and anti-poor policies", it said on Tuesday.

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/ 16 April 2007

Economist urges flat tax rates for SA

A flat tax in which the ratio of tax to taxable income is the same at all levels of income — and which replaces various tax bands that feature in a progressive tax regime with a single tax — would allow the South African government to gather more tax at lower rates, Free Market Foundation (FMF) economist Jasson Urbach has argued.

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/ 13 April 2007

Mbeki warns against slavery in new guise

The challenge facing the international community is that the contemporary global economy has given birth to various forms of economic activity affecting millions of people that is akin to the loss of personal freedom experienced by the classical slaves, South African President Thabo Mbeki argued on Friday.

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/ 27 March 2007

Radebe announces new public-transport plan

A multi-faceted public transport system action plan, involving integrated metered taxis and long-distance public transport, has been announced by Transport Minister Jeff Radebe. Noting that about R9-billion has been allocated of the medium-term budget to public transport, Radebe told journalists that the aim is to create "integrated rapid public transport networks".

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/ 26 March 2007

Fee-free schools allocated R2,95bn

South Africa’s no-fees schools have been allocated R2,95-billion for the 2007 school year, according to Education Minister Naledi Pandor. Replying to a parliamentary question from the Democratic Alliance’s George Boinamo, Pandor reported that this involved 13 901 schools and just over five million pupils.

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/ 16 March 2007

Manuel: Increased trade important for Africa

Increased trade is beneficial to Africa in that it supports poverty alleviation and is able to create new employment opportunities on the continent, said Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. It promotes regional integration and helps to expand intra-regional trade "while infusing new capital and technology into the continent", he told the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank.

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/ 7 March 2007

DA: Africa is starting to acknowledge chaos in Zim

African governments are beginning to acknowledge that Zimbabwe has slipped into chaos, Democratic Alliance (DA) chairperson Joe Seremane said on Wednesday. He said Zambian Foreign Affairs Minister Mundia Sikatana "should be … supported in his drive to get his country’s counterparts in the Southern African Development Community to stop pretending ‘all is well in Zimbabwe’".